My first direct encounter with a GPS system was in the back of my partner’s parents’ (I guess you can call them my sort-of In-Laws) SUV. A female voice calmly instructed my sort-of-father-in-law to turn onto route 95.”But that’s not the right way!” He was very exasperated. His wife said something in response that probably amounted to “Honey, every time you go against the GPS, we get hopelessly lost.” But she probably didn’t use the word “hopelessly.” It was however, what I was thinking at the time. And oh, did we get lost. After about 700 hours in the car we did eventually arrive at our destination. In this situation, it did seem that the GPS didn’t really help us calm my sort-of-father -law. If anything, she seemed to inspire further irritation. At some point I do think there was a “Shut up!” and an eventual silencing of the GPS.

However, my experience is something of a challenge the argument made in a New York Times article last week in which Bruce Feiler confessed to falling for his female GPS voice (he is kind of joking, but not really). He writes that many–men at least–have been having sexy thoughts about their GPS voices. Felier uses the work of Dr. Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford and a consultant for many car companies, to discuss the ideas that surround these disembodied female voices, that are often voices of actual woman. In the article Nass is quoted as saying that female voices are more likable, but male voices are seen as more competent. He also states that either way both men and women prefer female voices because they are seen as less threatening.

So maybe my experience isn’t as much of a challenge as I thought–perhaps our female GPS voice was seen as incompetent. That being said, my sort-of-father-in-law also thinks map quest and google maps are incompetent, and, as someone who has been totally and utterly screwed by mapquest–I was was led onto some weird army reserve in New Jersey, which was certainly not where I was headed– I have to somewhat agree with that.

Anyhow. I think this article seems to gloss over what seems to me to be a sticky mire of gender issues– that we long to hear submissive female voices that desire only to cater to every need strikes me as something troubling. And the flip-side of submission is incompetence? Yikes.

I also think that if we’re going to do sexy GPS voices, not being equal opportunity is a missed opportunity. Does that fix the problem I mentioned? Not really. However, if people are responding to voices this way, I’m sure there are a number of straight women and gay men who might want a sexy Johnny Depp or Jake Gyllenhaal type voice to tell them how to get where they’re going.

I can only hope that some customers do want spunkier confident female voices to tell us where to go. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a little variation to the monotony of a GPS voice that could even be customized. Like a voice that sounds like my best friend saying, “Hey, lady, don’t miss the next exit.” And I have to say, she has a very confident tone without harboring any judgement at all.

post script:

You can watch this totally bizarre video that was linked to the times article of a woman who does the voice over for some airlines. What’s funny to me is she sounds she’s trying to sound more automated even though she’s a real person. What is up with that, speech-heads?